Could spending cap space in 2021 actually better position the Knicks to acquire a star going forward?
The Knicks have cap space, have had cap space, and figure to have cap space going forward unless the right player comes along. But could the right move for future star-hunting be not to hoard cap space for one in free agency, but sign players that could be used in a trade?
The year was 1972. The Watergate scandal was in its infancy, The Godfather premiered and showed the world that Italian-Americans do exist, and the Knicks were starting what would become their most recent championship season. Yet most importantly in the context of this article, a little study involving gelatin would shock the world to its very core. Yes, the Stanford marshmallow experiment, a study that measured gratification in children, is our guiding light today.
The experiment was simple. A marshmallow (or a pretzel) was presented to each child. The child was told that they could either eat the treat now, or could wait around 15 minutes and receive a second treat. While there are certainly other factors at play, the children who almost instantly ate their treats in a feat of instant gratification tended to perform worse in several key areas of life, such as having poorer education and higher rates of obesity, than the children who showed restraint and received their second treat.
Based on the Knicks’ cap space clock, it’s starting to feel like the marshmallow test. Should the team spend this summer, knowing the free agent market isn’t the strongest, or should New York wait another summer when the market is better, and try to strike then instead? Cap space is great, but cap space will not win you a single game during the season. The Knicks will absolutely commit to adding 2022 salaries this offseason. What I’d like to explore today is if the Knicks should enter 2022 with zero cap space. Perhaps operating as an over-the-cap team in 2022 is wiser than clearing the decks.
NBA free agency isn’t quite like the marshmallow test. For starters, there are no known guarantees like that second marshmallow. The Knicks have been waiting for their second marshmallow for eons. Secondly, there’s nothing wrong with eating one marshmallow if you’re cool with having one marshmallow. The concern is what happens if you realize 15 minutes later that you should have had a pretzel instead, or that you actually do want a second marshmallow.
In life, I’m more of a minimalist. I certainly possess things, but I feel more joy from memorable experiences than I do from materialism. I’ve unfortunately seen enough hoarding to last a lifetime. What I tend to do, however, is go to my little payroll sheet and hoard cap space. I’m like a billionaire who sees all the good I can do in this world, but I’d really rather log into Fidelity, admire my fortune, and envision how I can purchase the best things money can buy.
I may be a dreamer, but I’m also a realist who is forced to come to grips with the idea that the Knicks will add guaranteed salary beyond next season. It’s not like the Knicks didn’t try to spend money last season, anyway — New York went after Chris Paul, Gordon Hayward, and Malik Beasley, striking out on all three. The primary goal for the offseason was assuredly not “Let’s start the season well below the salary cap.” Outside of summer 2019, we are continuously seeing teams retain their superstars thanks to supermax contracts and max extensions. Think about how star-studded summer 2021 was projected to be, and how pedestrian it is now. The same can happen in 2022, and if it does, where does New York stand? The Knicks can’t keep waiting for a free agent to hit the market and potentially sign with them.
Having significant cap space is ideal when you want to add talented free agents or if you’re looking to take on some bad salary. The problem, however, is that cap space may not be best when it comes to making a trade for a star. Teams don’t often try to dump their stars for money reasons. Even the Rockets dealt James Harden for what legally had to be matching salary. If (when?) the Blazers trade Damian Lillard, they’re not going to say “Oh great, let’s trade him for cap space, young players, and late first round picks over a package headlined by someone like Ben Simmons!”
When you take Julius Randle and RJ Barrett away, the Knicks’ best assets are based on players with potential who are on cheap contracts and first round picks. Big trades need to have meat and potatoes being sent in return, but it feels like the Knicks only have high quality spuds to offer. They need to acquire talented players who could be used in a future trade and can be of long term value to the team trading its star.
This is where the importance of adding tradable salary comes into play. It’s often quite difficult to go from good to elite in one offseason. One way to improve on last year’s season is by adding younger talent that either fits into the team’s long term plans or can appeal to another team looking to part with a star.
Turning your cap space into a player who can hold positive value is important if you’re determined to go the trade route to acquire a star. Signing someone like Lonzo Ball and then trading him, plus picks and/or young players, is a more compelling offer than not having salary filler and trading more picks and more young players to compensate for what you lack.
Two things to keep in mind:
You do not sign a player to a lengthy contract merely with the idea of trading him, because that can easily backfire. You sign him because you feel he adds value to your team and know he can be moved for an upgrade, should one become available.
You should not drastically overpay for a player, as at a certain point, the value he provides may not be nearly enough and the contract is no longer seen as a positive.
But see, this player doesn’t even have to be Ball. In fact, I’m not a particularly big fan of Zo’s, and am therefore not advocating to sign him specifically. It can be any player that the Knicks feel they can mold into someone who other teams would covet at a certain price at any point during the signed contract. The problem with signing younger players is you have to deal with restricted free agency, and you almost always have to overpay to pry the player loose. Or, you have to engage in a sign-and-trade, which costs you at least one asset. Sign-and-trades can be tricky to pull off, too, as there are more moving parts involved than in a standard trade.
This is also where the idea of acquiring a player like Collin Sexton makes more sense. If the Knicks are entering the 2022 offseason with no cap space as-is and then re-sign Sexton, they have even more salary to work with for a trade moving forward. If you view Sexton as an upgrade over a trade package like Kevin Knox, one of the team’s two first round picks this season, and the 32nd pick in the draft, then that type of move is worthwhile. In this scenario, Sexton doesn’t have to be your future. He has the potential to be high quality salary filler down the line.
I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention that I do have some qualms about Sexton’s game and future potential, which Jonathan Macri of KFS did a fantastic job of breaking down in a recent newsletter. Basketball isn’t played on paper, but in theory, if you’re going to be an over the cap team anyway, adding Sexton’s salary to the mix gives you more to play with moving forward. Remember what we discussed moments ago, though: “You should not drastically overpay for a player, as at a certain point, the value he provides may not be nearly enough and the contract is no longer seen as a positive.”
Then you have thoughts creep in for other players, like “Did the Knicks really just submit an offer sheet to spend over $13 million a year on someone like Josh Hart and have no money to work with next summer?” I don’t say this as a slight to Hart — it’s more the mindset of committing money to a non-star in a league where stardom rules all. Maybe the goal is to use Hart as that outgoing salary down the line, but we cannot see far enough down the line to make heads or tails of such a signing. Maybe Hart’s a mainstay, maybe he’s viewed as trade bait, but sacrificing your rook or taking your opponent’s pawn does not mean that’s your final move. This summer would be more like the top of the fourth inning than the bottom of the ninth. Lo and behold, there is still time.
Tim Hardaway Jr. is an apt example. When the Knicks signed Hardaway Jr. in 2017, I became fairly despondent. For a few days, the Knicks hadn’t done anything stupid, and now? Now, it felt like they had done exactly that. The difference between your classic Knicks move and this one was that the Knicks were betting on younger talent and not your empty calorie, former All-Star who does not have much left in the tank and doesn’t fit in with the window. Hardaway Jr. was then miscast as a second option, later traded to (prematurely) create cap space, and now he’s likely going to make a great deal of money in Dallas.
In 2018, though, they had to deal with Enes Kanter’s player option, on top of having other unsavory contracts. The Knicks also did not really have a player worth building around either. Now, New York has two players. The front office of that 2018 team would have moved heaven and earth to part with those deals if it meant securing two max players — and they did the heavy lifting without gaining the most significant reward.
Think about the Knicks trading Kristaps Porzingis on his own to Dallas, landing two stars in 2019, and then using the contracts of Hardaway Jr. and Courtney Lee to create a Kevin Durant sign-and-trade. That would have worked! The math would have checked out! The Knicks could do something similar in 2022 if they make signings this offseason, only instead of trying to trade any of the contracts they had in Hardaway Jr., Lee, Kanter, and Joakim Noah, they could instead sign (and later package) better and younger talent.
But… do the Knicks really want to commit long term money to someone who could play less of a role than Hardaway Jr. did? Couldn’t you slap a Band-Aid or two on this roster with more one-year fixes? If this is their mindset now, why didn’t the Knicks sign someone like Bogdan Bogdanovic to an offer sheet this past offseason instead, like Tom Thibodeau reportedly wanted? You could commit some money towards 2022 and also have plenty of cap space for a max caliber player.
There are three max players who could be on the free agent market in 2022: Stephen Curry, Bradley Beal, and Zach LaVine. If you’re New York, what’s your move if you strike out on all three? Did you do enough in the meantime and in the aftermath to make waiting (and missing) worth it? Did you make a move out of desperation later on? And again, if you think you can pull off a sign-and-trade, couldn’t you just do that? You certainly wouldn’t be putting all your eggs in one basket.
Another positive to the Knicks looking to use up their 2022 cap space a year in advance is having the intention of being an over-the-cap team in 2022. This would give the Knicks the ability to use the more expensive, non-taxpayer mid-level exception (NTMLE) as opposed to the room exception. New York could then pull off a trade/sign-and-trade for a star, sign a player to that NTMLE, and have more salary at its disposal to flip in another big trade over the next few seasons. This is important, because it doesn’t leave you with too little salary to make upgrades.
That’s where signing Chris Paul or Kyle Lowry to multiple years gives me a slight pause. What happens if either player gets injured or their play drastically declines, and now you’re on the hook for a significant amount of money? Do you have a solid exit strategy to get rid of either player if necessary? You’re building around Randle at 27 and Barrett at 21, but you’re comfortable bringing in either of these older players? Which star are you targeting in a trade or in a sign-and-trade over the next 12 months to make the acquisition of a player 35 or older worth it for your team?
Acquiring either Paul and Lowry concerns me, but again, I don’t know what’s next. If the front office likes its chances at making some magic happen in 2022, I would understand. Would they go so far as to trade either? I doubt Leon Rose would package Paul (maybe Lowry), but if so, it’s a different conversation. We can’t see that far ahead so it’s tough to make a legitimate determination. Although, I can tell you that if you’re signing one of these players and you plan to keep him, you no longer have cap space to sign a star even if you plan on entering 2022 with cap space. You then have to bank on adding talent through a trade or a sign-and-trade, but the problem is that you’re trading all of your expendable salary away. You now lack the salary to make any other trades along the margins.
One thing we’ve learned is that no contract is ever truly untradable. There are bad deals — and you do not want to sign one of them — but most are not death sentences. Hell, look at how the Miami Heat managed to escape their terrible contracts, or how the Thunder just this morning turned Al Horford into a positive asset. At the end of the day, if a star wants to play with the Knicks and if the Knicks want said star, New York will make it happen. There are, after all, several ways to weaponize cap space. What’s more pressing in the interim is building a team with pieces that don’t merely fit together on paper, but can also play well with one another. Like how Ball hasn’t demonstrated he’s a lead guard, for example — you wouldn’t want to sign him and Norman Powell.
This entire offseason is like one big choose-your-own-adventure book. There are several different paths that could work to build towards a contending team. Chances are that you like your preferred path. I think spending now or saving for later both have their merits. If the Knicks didn’t have a surplus of draft picks, I’d probably feel differently. Nevertheless, they do have a great deal of assets at their disposal to make big moves. Spending all of your money on talent that you can then package and trade for an elite player within the following 12 months is an extremely viable path for the Knicks to take. As a self-proclaimed cap space hoarder, perhaps I’ve been so focused on that second marshmallow that I’ve lost sight of eating my first one.
